xml-dev - Re: Options in XML 1.0

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

At 01:40 PM 11/10/00 -0500, Jonathan Borden wrote:
>    Questioning wisdom is easy to do unless you propose an alternative. The
>term "armchair quarterback" comes to mind. I'm willing to listen to proposed
>fixes to the true problem you are discussing (wasn't this the crux of the
>"Between Raw and Cooked" thread?) But, if your proposed fix trashes my
>current and planned implementations I am going to either loudly complain,
>mandate XML 1.0 (i.e. not accept your solution), or both.

I proposed re-examining the categories of processing XML 1.0 defines to
examine whether those categories really work.  I don't think they do, but I
don't think an obvious solution leaps out.  Reaching solutions is
difficult, and starting discussions with a particular solution doesn't seem
like a smart way to proceed when it's not even clear to many people that
the problem exists.

I've been working at this in various forms (XPDL, Common XML, several
chapters in books) for years, and I'd really prefer that you leave phrases
like "armchair quarterback" at home.

You're quite welcome to mandate XML 1.0 for your own projects.  I'm sure
the W3C would be disappointed if you opted to ignore Namespaces and W3C XML
Schemas, not to mention a few of their other specs, but it's certainly up
to you as implementation designer.

>    That being said I would no more wish to require someone to use a DTD
>than I would wish to require someone to use an XML Schema, and part of the
>wisdom of XML 1.0 is that it requires neither. I'm not so worried that
>Common XML wishes not to use DTDs as I am that future incarnations of W3C
>XML attempt to deprecate DTDs over XML Schemas.

That's a problem which goes well beyond anything I was discussing.  I'd far
prefer an XML which made it easy for document creators to use DTDs _or_
Schemas _or_ neither by _their_ choice, not the parser creator, but I don't
think that's necessarily incompatible with your hopes.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books